Long Weekend
Intro Don loses an account. Roger, stuck in the city for Labor Day weekend, attempts to cheer him up, which results in a heart attack. Meanwhile, Joan has a night out on the town with her roommate. Synopsis Don comes down the steps for work as Sally cheers, "Grandpa's here! And Aunt Gloria!" He goes into the kitchen to find Betty's dad sitting at the table, Gloria standing beside him. He wants sugar in his tea, but Betty only allows him saccharine. They're getting ready to leave for the beach when Betty suggestively asks Don to help her with something upstairs. "Was she waiting at the funeral unbuttoning her top button?" Betty asks, regarding her father's new girlfriend. "She's a vulture." Don tries to calm her down and suggests that her father can't even fix himself a cup of tea by himself after having been married for 40 years. Don heads to the office for one more day before the long weekend. There, the men are watching a Kennedy campaign, trying to strategize their next move for their pro-bono work with Nixon. Perhaps a negative ad would be more powerful than a positive one, which only attracts people who already like him. Don thinks there is more to the story: "Kennedy? Nouveau riche, a recent immigrant who bought his way into Harvard. Nixon is from nothing. Abe Lincoln of California, a self-made man. Kennedy, I see a silver spoon. Nixon, I see myself." They cut that meeting short for another, this one with the Menkens, both Rachel Menken and her father Abraham. Abraham is somewhat open to the suggestions Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency offers, they want to add a restaurant on the ground floor and close the store during construction, but he has concerns that he's creating a store that even he wouldn't shop in. Don, looking at Rachel, describes how his customers have changed: "They're like your daughter, educated and sophisticated. They are fully aware of what they deserve and are willing to pay for it." Roger passes Joan in the hall and tells her that his wife and daughter are out of town this weekend, so they can do whatever they want. Instead, she asks to see the new movie, "The Apartment" before making a comparison to how Shirley MacLaine's character was handed around to the office men like a tray of canapés. As Joan puts up a memo in the break room, her friend Carol McCardy, her eyes bloodshot, walks in. She had just gotten fired after covering for her boss. "These men, we're always building them up, and for what?" Joan says. "Diner and jewelry? Who cares?" They decide to spend the weekend on the town in search of actual bachelors. Meanwhile, Pete walks into Don's office with some bad news. They lost the Dr. Scholl's account because, as Pete says, they were disappointed with the creative. Angry, Don shoves everything off his desk onto the floor. He goes to Roger's office, where he's getting his hair trimmed, and tells him the latest. "The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them," Roger says, echoing Don's sentiments. On the main floor, Pete pesters Peggy while she tries to ignore him. "Every time I walk by I wonder, are you going to be nice to me -- or cruel?" Peggy says when he won't let up. Disappointed, Pete walks away. Meanwhile, the other ad men are busy flirting with a group of models, all sets of twins, at the Cartwright double-sided aluminum casting call. Roger and Don show up and set their sights on Eleanor and Mirabelle Ames. Roger hires them on the spot and requests a private celebration upstairs in his office. Drinks all around, Roger flirts relentlessly. "Do you love your sister?" he prods. "Why don't you show her how much? Give her a kiss." Before anything happens, Don rises to leave. Before he can, Eleanor asks him to dance. Across town, Joan and Carol are getting ready in Joan's bedroom. When Joan notices Carol staring, Carol reveals her true feelings. "I did everything I could to be near you -- all with the hope that one day you would notice me," she says. "Joannie, just think of me as a boy." As she finishes packing her purse, Joan simply asks if they can forget about it and just go out. Later that night, Joan and Carol return with Franklin, a Fordham college professor, and Ralph, a carpenter. When Joan asks Franklin to change her light bulb, in her bedroom, Ralph makes a move on Carol. Back at Sterling Cooper, Don and Eleanor sit in Don's office when they hear Mirabelle scream. "I knew I shouldn't have asked him to do it a second time," she says. Don rushes in to find Roger, naked on the floor. Several moments later, two orderlies push a gurney with a conscious Roger toward the elevator lobby. At the hospital, Roger recovers from a heart attack and asks Don if he believes in human energy, like a soul. When his wife Mona arrives, he breaks down and cries. Then, his daughter Margaret Sterling comes in. The 3 embrace. That night, Joan rushes to the office to help Cooper send out telegrams to all Roger Sterling clients, assuring them that business will go uninterrupted. She holds back tears as Cooper tells her she could do better. Don calls Betty to tell him he won't be going to the beach house, and Pete watches a television ad for Kennedy, in which President Eisenhower trashes Nixon, in the hospital waiting room. Don knocks on the door of an apartment. Rachel, in a robe with tousled hair, answers. She lets him in and fixes him a drink. He leans in and kisses her desperately. "Is this like the end of the world," she asks, stopping him. "Just do whatever you want?" Don opens up and talks about the first time he was a pallbearer and being that close to death. "This is it, this is all there is," he says. "And it's slipping through my fingers." They kiss passionately, slowly laying back onto the couch. He asks if she really wants this. "Yes, please," she replies. Afterwards, Don opens up once more. His mother was a prostitute, and when she died in childbirth, they delivered the baby to his father and his wife. His father was a drunk who got kicked in the face by a horse. When he died, she took up with another man. "I was raised by those two sorry people." Trivia *The projector in the Nixon/JFK scene was just for show. The actual ads are coming from a tape above the camera. *Michael Gladis, the actor who plays Paul, was told to not sing as well to give the scene more realism. *In the commentary track for Season 1, Matthew Weiner states that he almost cut down the scene where Don and Roger talk in Roger’s office due to his (Matt's) “weak ego”. *Jon Hamm actually slapped John Slattery during his coverage shot (when John’s face was off-screen) as a joke. John yelled at him for that. *It was Robert Morse’s idea to have Cooper by himself in the office when Joan shows up. Cast Main Star *Jon Hamm as Don Draper *Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson *Vincent Kartheiser as Pete Campbell *January Jones as Betty Hofstadt *Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway *Bryan Batt as Salvatore Romano *Michael Gladis as Paul Kinsey *Aaron Staton as Ken Cosgrove *Rich Sommer as Harry Crane *Maggie Siff as Rachel Menken Guest Star *Robert Morse as Bertram Cooper *John Slattery as Roger Sterling *Talia Balsam as Mona Sterling *Ryan Cutrona as Gene Driscoll *Allan Miller as Abraham Menken *Kate Norby as Carol McCardy *Elizabeth Rice as Margaret Sterling *Alexis Stier as Mirabelle Ames *Megan Stier as Eleanor Ames *John Walcutt as Franklin Newcomb Co-Star *Jen Fouts as Twin #1 *Jill Fouts as Twin #2 *Scott Michael Morgan as Ralph Stubbs *Darcy Shean as Gloria Massey *Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper Media Quotes Joan: "These men. Constantly building them up, and for what? Dinner? Jewelry? Who cares?" --Joan on men, in Long Weekend. Joan: "I feel like I'm stuck somewhere between Doris Day in "Pillow Talk" and "Midnight Lace", when what I need to be is Kim Novak in just about anything," --Joan on herself, in Long Weekend. Category:Season 1